The Course and Character of the Civil War and Its Effects on the American People

Standard 2

The course and character of the Civil War and its effects on the American people

Grade Level 5-12

Evaluate provisions of the Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln’s reasons for issuing it, and its significance.

Scenario:

It is 1880 and you are a white Union veteran of the Civil War. You have been invited to address a reunion of Civil War veterans (one of many such events in the postwar period that brought together men who had served in both the Union and Confederate armies). You have been asked to deliver a speech highlighting the most important moments and turning points of the Civil War. Should the Emancipation Proclamation be included in the speech, and if so, how? To think about this question, you must consider the proclamation’s impact on the military war, on society, and on politics during the war.

Write a set of talking points that addresses to what extent the Emancipation Proclamation was an important turning point in the Civil War. Be sure to consider both its short and long-term consequences and to develop an overall conclusion on the document’s significance. Also remember that different people of the Civil War era would answer this question differently -- you are assessing the proclamation specifically from the perspective of a white Union veteran 15 years after the war ended.

Documents:

For background reading, see:

Ira Berlin, “Emancipation and Its Meaning in American Life,” in Reconstruction 2 (1994): 41-44. (PDF)

Allen C. Guelzo, “The Emancipation Proclamation: Bill of Lading or Ticket to Freedom?” http://www.historynow.org/12_2005/historian.html

Joseph Glatthaar, “Black Glory: The African American Role in Union Victory,” in Michael Perman, ed., Major Problems in the Civil War and Reconstruction (Houghton Mifflin, 1998), pp. 297-310.

Abraham Lincoln’s Writings:

Emancipation Proclamation

National Archives

http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/featured_documents/emancipation_proclamation/

(Be sure to read the transcription linked at the bottom of this page)

President Abraham Lincoln to Albert G. Hodges, editor of the Frankfort, KY, Commonwealth, April 4, 1864

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/alhtml/almss/ln001.html

Transcription of this letter available at: http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/mal:@field(DOCID+@lit(d3207700))

Writings of White Union Soldiers:

“The Effects of the Proclamation,” Harper’s Weekly, February 21, 1863: http://13thamendment.harpweek.com/hubpages/CommentaryPage.asp?Commentary=04EmanProc (Scroll down to Documents # 13 and 14)

From the Indiana Magazine of History – see the following 3 letters:

http://www.iub.edu/%7Eimaghist/for_teachers/cvlwrrcnstn/emncpprclm/letterset2.htm

http://www.iub.edu/%7Eimaghist/for_teachers/cvlwrrcnstn/emncpprclm/letterset3.htm

http://www.iub.edu/%7Eimaghist/for_teachers/cvlwrrcnstn/emncpprclm/letterset4.htm

Jacob Bruner to Martha J. Bruner, April 9, 1863, in “Slavery and the Making of America”:

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/slavery/experience/freedom/docs14.html

Charles Harvey Brewster to Mattie, March 5, 1862, in David W. Blight, ed., When this Cruel War is Over: The Civil War Letters of Charles Harvey Brewster (University of Massachusetts Press, 1992), pp. 93-94. (PDF)

Other Writings:

Mother of a northern black soldier to Abraham Lincoln, July 31, 1863

http://www.history.umd.edu/Freedmen/hjohnsn.html

Captain Charles Wilder, USA, testifies before American Freedmen’s Inquiry Commission, May 9, 1863

http://www.history.umd.edu/Freedmen/wilder.htm

“The Opposition and Slavery,” New York Times, January 13, 1864 (PDF)

(The “Opposition” referred to here were the Democrats.)

“The President and the Opposition,” New York Times, November 11, 1864 (PDF)